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An eye-tracker controlled cognitive battery: overcoming verbal-motor limitations in ALS

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Abstract

We assessed language, attention, executive, and social cognition abilities in a sample of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) by means of a recently developed cognitive battery based on oculomotor control with eye-tracking (ET) technology. Twenty-one ALS patients and 21 age- and education-matched healthy subjects underwent the ET-based cognitive assessment, together with the standard cognitive screening tools [Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB); Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA); and Digit Sequencing Task]. Psychological measures of anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory) were also collected, and an ET usability questionnaire was administered. For patients, clinical and respiratory examinations were also performed, together with behavioural assessment (Frontal Behavioural Inventory). The developed battery discriminated among patients and controls with regard to measures of verbal fluency, frontal abilities, and social cognition. Measures of diagnostic utility confirmed a higher diagnostic accuracy of such ET-based tests with respect to FAB; similar diagnostic accuracy emerged when comparing them to the other standard cognitive tools (MoCA, WM). Usability ratings about the ET tests were comparable among the two groups. The ET-based neuropsychological battery demonstrated good levels of diagnostic accuracy and usability in a clinical population of non-demented ALS patients, compared to matched healthy controls. Future studies will be aimed at further investigate validity and usability components by recruiting larger sample of patients, both in moderate-to-severe stages of the disease and affected by more severe cognitive impairment.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank patients and their relatives, together with the other volunteers who participated to this research. The presented work was partly funded by the “eBrain: BCI and ET for ALS” Lombardy Region project.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Barbara Poletti and Laura Carelli contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology and Laboratory of Neuroscience, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy

    Barbara Poletti, Laura Carelli, Federica Solca, Annalisa Lafronza, Nicola Ticozzi, Andrea Ciammola & Vincenzo Silani

  2. Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy

    Elisa Pedroli, Pietro Cipresso & Giuseppe Riva

  3. Department of Cardiovascular, Neural and Metabolic Sciences, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy

    Andrea Faini

  4. Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, “Dino Ferrari” Center, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Nicola Ticozzi & Vincenzo Silani

  5. ICT and Biomedical Technology Integration Unit, Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CITT), Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus, Milan, Italy

    Paolo Meriggi

  6. Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

    Dorothée Lulé & Albert C. Ludolph

  7. Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Giuseppe Riva

Authors
  1. Barbara Poletti
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  2. Laura Carelli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara Poletti.

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Conflicts of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

The study has been approved by our Institute ethic committee and has, therefore, been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

Electronic supplementary material

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Video presenting the RCPM adaptation (MOV 11,036 kb)

Video presenting the RME adaptation (MOV 12369 kb)

Diagnostic parameters for the standard and ET-based tests’ variables (PDF 106 kb)

Diagnostic parameters for ET-based VF tests (PDF 166 kb)

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Poletti, B., Carelli, L., Solca, F. et al. An eye-tracker controlled cognitive battery: overcoming verbal-motor limitations in ALS. J Neurol 264, 1136–1145 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-017-8506-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-017-8506-z

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